John Mercer

Who is John Mercer?

Dr. John Mercer is an established geneticist/cell biologist who studies the molecular motors that transport organelles and proteins within the cell to where they are needed. Dr. Mercer was recruited from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. As a postdoctoral fellow under Scientific Advisory Committee members Neal Copeland and Nancy Jenkins at the National Cancer Institute, Frederick, he cloned the first non-muscle myosin gene to be described in mice. Mutations in non-muscle myosins can cause various genetic forms of deafness including Usher's syndrome 1B (myosin 7a) and non-syndromic deafness B2 (also myosin 7a) and B3 (myosin 15). In collaboration with investigators at Harvard, Oregon Health Sciences University, and University of California San Francisco, Dr. Mercer is evaluating the role of myosin 1a in hair cell adaptation. By mutating genes to produce proteins with altered ATP-analogues, Dr. Mercer and his colleagues are able to selectively inhibit the function of the mutant protein using specially designed ATP-analogues. Application of this revolutionary technique has great potential to dissect the role of individual proteins in hearing.